• The vows had been exchanged and the congregation had departed, so for one member of Westminster Abbey's staff it was an opportunity that was apparently too tempting to resist. In an impromptu display of acrobatics that is showing all the signs of becoming a viral sensation on the internet, a cassocked verger made his own contribution to the spectacle by doing at least two cartwheels down the abbey's nave following the ceremony. The abbey's press office is remaining tight-lipped about his identity. "I think he was just reflecting the exuberance of the nation," said a spokeswoman. "It was after the wedding had long finished," she added, emphasising the world "long".

• Of the hundreds of spoof events, the alternative zombie royal wedding at Collyhurst in Manchester took the biscuit. Fire-eaters, angle grinders and a hog roast replaced the dignities of Westminster. Guest instructions advised: "Dig out your old tuxedos or wedding dress and veil, cover yourself with blood, tear some chunks out of your flesh (or use latex). The government said party, so party we will." The 10-hour gig ended with a rooftop "marriage" of the best-dressed zombie pair.

• Naked celebrations defied brisk weather in Northumberland where naturists held a wedding party at their clubhouse in Newburn. Members delicately painted union flags and other appropriate symbols on one another before settling down to watch events at Westminster with homemade sandwiches and cake. Club secretary Mike, who preferred not to give his surname, said that more of the party would have been held outdoors had the weather been milder. The highpoint of the broadcast for members, curiously, was discussion over clothes being worn by the dramatis personae in the abbey.

• Cuts or not, the small Oxfordshire town of Abingdon went ahead with ordering 4,000 currant buns for the mayor and councillors to hurl from the roof of the local museum on to celebrating crowds. The strange bombardment is a local tradition dating back to 1761. Buns were last thrown in July 1981 to mark the wedding of Prince William's parents and are due to fly again in 2012 for the Queen's diamond jubilee.

• Council workers took only 65 minutes to clean the streets around Westminster Abbey, Whitehall and Parliament Square after litter-dropping crowds moved off to the Mall and Buckingham Palace. Dump trucks ferried away the first of an estimated 140 tonnes of rubbish, with 130 Westminster council staff running the operation. Pre-wedding preparations in the street-cleaning world included extra scooping of gullies to avoid puddles in the event of rain, and a change in that obscure timetable, the central London statue-cleaning rota.

• Whoops. Off went the lights and, more importantly, the TVs in hundreds of homes near Windsor Castle just as the couple left the main abbey stage to sign the register. Southern Electric blamed not republicans but a fault in the high-voltage network for the untimely blacking-out of the village of Datchet. Engineers worked overtime to get supplies back in time for later joyous scenes in the Mall and on the Buckingham Palace balcony.

• The Warwickshire market town of Alcester comfortably retained its title as host of the UK's largest street party. The high street was closed and decorated with two miles of bunting as over 1,000 locals enjoyed a celebratory feast. John Bunting, former high bailiff of the town, said: "The whole town has turned out for it." Alcester set the pace in 1902 for King Edward VII's coronation, and has since celebrated the end of the second world war, the Queen's coronation and Charles and Diana's wedding.

• Kate Middleton's second cousin once removed, Pete Beedle, newly famous proprietor of Beedle's Chippy in Bishop Auckland, county Durham, created two new lines for the day. Middleton's mushy peas and Kate's kod sold well as 47-year-old Pete laboured away at his fryers behind balloons and bunting. "It's just another working day for us," he said, "but my mum's over the moon about us being related to the future Queen."

• Artistically, honours for the most inventive parallel celebration went to Theatr Cynefin's Royal Wedding Eco Pantos, one every 30 minutes, deep in Gwydyr forest near Llanrwst. The libretto ranged between Welsh, English, Bulgarian and Portuguese, according to performers' nationalities, and told the story of an evil baron who changed his panto cow's milk to gold but was frustrated by a heroic young couple. A house made of sweets stood in for Westminster Abbey.

• Salford, soon to be the BBC's second home, hosted an Off With their Heads event at Islington Mill, whose name is the down-to-earth city's sole concession to fashionable London. It was one of Five Salford Ways to Avoid the Royal Wedding advertised by the radical local Salford Star. The others? Watching Salford City's last game of the season against Chorley; curling up at home to listen to Class Action's anti-wedding rap; joining a funeral procession for public services between Hulme and Manchester town hall; and taking a guided walk round Manchester and Salford's radical, riotous and rebellious history.

• Yorkshire's alternative capital of Hebden Bridge took things more gently, with an alternative fun day only mildly critical of London's pomp and circumstance. Between three-legged races and manning a cake stall, Janet Oosthuysen, manager of the town's trades club, said: "The celebration is not anti-royalist in itself, although the vast majority of people here are probably republicans. What we are saying is we know there's a bank holiday coming up, we know two people are getting married and we wish them well but we are going to use that time to have a party of our own, where we will drink beer, eat cake and listen to some music."

Wakefield has seen a royal upset or two in England's past civil wars, but that's history. The city council spent wedding day compiling a vast online record of what everyone was doing, from street parties to watching TV or getting away from it all. Collated through social media, emails, blogs and the rest of the internet's powers, the result will be exhibited at Wakefield Museum next month as A Right Royal Day.

• Whitehaven on the Cumbrian coast was the setting for a "really common" royal wedding fashion shoot by designer Angy Morton. Annoyed at descriptions of Kate Middleton as ordinary, given her prosperous family background, Morton staged cameos of the bride leaving her council house, feasting on fish and chips (albeit not at Pete Beedle's) and honeymooning on Windermere. The event also doubled as a plug for the Lake District. Everyone and everything in it is Cumbrian.